Okay, so it’s true that most readers have a book that they can count as their favorite—but what about the book that gave you your first “hangover”?
For me, the first that comes to mind is Twilight (you’ll see a lot of Stephenie Meyer on this site, so no-judgey. We’re all friends here.).
Thinking back to Twilight and the era that we were in is such a fever dream. It was the early 2000s, and side-swept bangs were in (you know, the ones that you swore would make you look like Lindsay Lohan in Mean Girls, but really, you kind of just looked like a horse [or maybe that was just me—I also had the skunk highlights for a real pop of color]). Think of movies like Sky High and how the bowl cut was fashionable. Aquamarine with the lifeguard that every girl swore she would marry (also me, hello). The aforementioned Mean Girls. Harry Potter’s fourth installment, or the first Narnia movie… All of us girly-pops were living our best fantasy years via Sara Paxton and her ‘Shell-Phone’.
In comes Twilight—a rogue player of sorts, and a thick brick of a book that’s more intimidating than clipping a hangnail on your left big toe over the toilet bowl. Well, okay, maybe that was just me… Because in 2005, I was seven years old.
Four years later, and the ripe age of eleven, I vividly remember walking down the stairs of my parents’ home and into the living room. Right above the fireplace and on top of the mantle, there she sat; Twilight, my very first hangover.
I’ll never forget picking it up, how the book weighed my wrist down. At that time, this was a big read, and I’d never read something that thick before.
As is true to my nature, I flipped through the pages until I reached the very end, eager to see what story someone could tell in so many words. And right there, at the very end of the book, the tip of the hook rested.
Rooooomance!
It’s so funny to think back on it now, how I’d not really read much prior to Twilight, other than a book or two by a local author who wrote children’s horror stories. And yet, this moment was so poignant for me; it was the first moment in my life when I realized that I didn’t have to limit my fantasy world to a mere two hours while watching a movie. Rather, I could spend days or even weeks wrapped up in another world. It was wonderful, truly as magical as the real world can get in my humble opinion.
With books, we don’t just read words on paper; we come alive in another form. It’s an entirely new world to experience, a new body, a new mind, other than the droning worries of your own head. For me, Twilight was that very experience, and for a full week, I was Bella Swan—but more importantly, Edward Cullen was totally in love with me.
If you haven’t read the series or if you’ve only seen the movies, I seriously cannot recommend this story enough. This is one of those books that you can’t just watch the movie and say you know the story (because I promise you, you don’t).
The movies just don’t do Bella justice.
I’m not here to talk about the movies or the actors, but I will say that despite them kind of being a meme nowadays, my little twelve-year-old heart will always have a biased fondness for them.
Seriously, don’t come for the movies because we all loved them. Yes, even you, you liar.
Anyway, in the books, we see Bella as this witty girl with a knack for science and literature. She’s not just obsessed with Edward, she’s also highly intelligent, outspoken, and very practical (as she should be after basically raising both herself and her mother). Of course, as the books go on, we see her practicality wane, since most of her thoughts on mortality go out the window when Edward is in peril (we listen and we don’t judge).
Most of the first book, Bella tries to understand how she could be in love with a monster hell-bent on restraining himself from killing her. Simultaneously, she’s a teenage girl who feels like an outcast, but with her own practical mind, also knows that others likely feel the same and doesn’t try to victimize herself. With Bella’s character, we see someone who isn’t the norm in most stories, but rather, she’s as real as a fictional character can be.
Then there’s Edward, the center of most memes of this era (lol). Robert Pattinson wasn’t my first love, but I would be a massive liar if I said he wasn’t a top contender. Even as the years go on, a piece of my heart will always hold on to that scene when we first see Edward walk into the cafeteria (the same one where Alice for sure would have gotten a swirly in real life for being twirled like a ballerina by her step-brother).
In the books, Edward is a little odd. Of course, there’s that foreshadowing of ‘why does he talk like my Grandpa’ as you begin the story. Then, as you read on, you realize that he talks like your Grandpa because he and Grand-Pappy are the same age (well, Grand-Pappy might be a whipper-snapper to Eddie since he’s over 100 years old, but that’s beside the point).
Edward comes in as this highly elusive, broody, and mysterious teen. He’s not seen much in the first few chapters, mainly because he’s restraining himself from murdering Bella and the rest of his classmates, but also because… Well, no, that’s about it.
Later, Bella is almost merked by another student driving on black ice like a bat out of hell. Of course, Edward swoops in to save her, only to later pretend that it never happened and Bella is psychotic (and to be fair, it’s not a bad take if you exclude gaslighting from the equation). But from that moment on, Edward can’t stop thinking about Bella, and the same is true for the latter.
Through a series of unfortunate events, most of which involve Bella almost dying while doing basic tasks (we love her, we are her), Edward quickly falls in love with Bella. Not long after, Bella quickly deduces that Edward is not human, and while Google did in fact exist at this time, our girl pulls out the big guns and instead subtly seduces a childhood friend of hers, Jacob Black, into spilling the beans.
As the story progresses, Bella once again almost dies a horrific death at the hands of a serial killer, only to then find out that Edward is stalking her (no, like he’s literally watching her sleep because he likes it—and I don’t want to hear anything about it because none of us said jack-diddly about it being weird until years later). Of course, Edward saves the day, and on the car ride home, admits to being a vampire (ooooooooh). Oh—and he can read everyone’s mind, except for Bella’s.
Fast forward through a few different scenes, like Edward admitting his jealousy of the two other boys who like Bella (as if Mike Newton ever had a chance), or Bella almost curb-stomping another boy for telling everyone he was taking her to Prom. As the story goes on, Bella quickly falls in love with Edward and his family of vampires, visits a meadow that will later be another spot where she almost dies, and generally decides that she’s going to become a vampire.
At the turning point in the story, the family decides to play a game of baseball (iconic scene in the movies, and don’t even try to deny it because we all know the Muse song). With Bella tagging along, things get hairy when a group of nomadic vampires trudge through the forest in their direction, seeking them out. Alice, Edward’s adoptive sister, can see the future, and with this ability, she’s able to see that the whole family is about to enter round one with Bella’s final boss.
Very quickly, the nomads realize that Bella is a human, and the proverbial ‘poo’ hits the fan.
Later, after Edward accidentally antagonizes one of the three vampires, James, into hunting her, the pair runs off to try and escape unscathed.
In a really gut-wrenching scene, Bella says some pretty horrible stuff to her emotionally damaged father to protect him (namely, what her mother said to him verbatim, eighteen years prior, when she suddenly divorced him). In all seriousness, this scene was so well-done, and I still tear up reading it today.
Edward and his family quickly form a plan to keep Bella safe while they hunt James and his mate, Victoria, and Bella is subsequently split off from Edward.
Along with Alice and her mate, Jasper (who only recently stopped feeding on humans, lol), Bella drives to Arizona, where she awaits further instruction. Only, James is one step ahead of them all, faking a panicked phone call from Bella’s mother by using an old videotape from when she was young, and convincing Bella to sacrifice herself to save her mother.
In an escape that can only be described as absolutely wild and out-of-pocket, Bella pretends to pee and makes Jasper come along (L.O.L!!!), and manages to make her way down to the old Ballet Studio where she used to dance. When she arrives, she’s horrified to find that James has been lying to her, but relieved that her mother isn’t in danger.
In a pretty heartbreaking moment, Bella halfway gives up and accepts death. Of course, there’s a small fight between the two of them, but because Bella is no match for James, it quickly ends with Bella on the floor and bleeding out. She also ends up with a really gross break in her leg that kind of adds to the whole ‘James playing with his food’ visual.
Just in the nick of time, Edward swoops in and saves the day. Faster than the rest of his family, he arrives first and tries to take on James alone. Not too long after, the rest of the fam shows up, and Carlisle (note that I fully read his name as ‘Car-listle’ for a full two years before being corrected) goes to work on keeping Bella alive.
James is quickly sent to the next life via Emmet and Jasper, and the others quickly notice that James didn’t just mortally maim Bella; he also bit her.
This is the part where we all get to see Edward’s true colors. While he’s been truthful about his love for Bella, there are very few times we actually get to see it in action other than a couple of pretty words. In this scene, Edward decides that he’s not going to doom Bella to a fate he deems closely related to hell, and instead, he sucks the venom from the bite.
For a long time, I think I believed that if he truly loved her, then he would have let her turn. Why, if he was constantly afraid that he might kill her, would he not let her turn? Why wouldn’t he want to spend an infinite number of years with her if he had the chance? It felt selfish to me.
But in that same scene, we also see Edward’s true nature, his selflessness, but also his self-hatred. He’s terrified that the one person who’s made him feel alive again will hate the life he deems as total death. Edward has been alive for over one hundred years, and he’s had quite a bit of time to reflect on the life he now leads. In the same way, I think Edward is terrified that Bella will end up resenting him for allowing her to turn, and for letting it happen outside of her own terms.
In the end, Bella is saved (for now) from becoming a vampire, and instead convalesces in the hospital as a human. There, Edward says some pretty shady things that lead us to believe he’s not so sure about his choices, but ultimately promises that he won’t leave Bella (but we all know he will--*sigh*).
In the end, at the epilogue, the two go off to Prom together. The story stops at that poignant moment, the hook that left me as a life-time bookworm. On the very last page, Bella announces to Edward, “Mostly, I dream about being with you forever,” (Meyer, 2005, p. 500).
Gahh! It’s silly now, looking back. Yet, as a kid, these words were so powerful to me. In them, I could almost backtrack through the entire story and see the form of something I wanted to be a part of, or at least experience for myself. At that time in my life, I was far too young to experience a love like that in real life, and it was absolutely enthralling to become Bella for a short while, to see what her life and love were like.
Without a doubt, finishing this book was the first time I’d ever experienced a real “hangover”. After I’d finished, I clearly remember running to my mom and asking if she’d finished the second one yet. I needed to know what happened to Edward and Bella. More, I needed to know how they were going to continue on their happily-ever-after.
Of course, I also got my first kick to the proverbial nuts after finding out the events of New Moon, but that’s a story for another time.
To sum the whole story up, I’d say it’s not what meets the eye. Yes, it has moments of corny lines, and yes, Bella often makes proclamations of undying love—but it hits differently in the books. I truly cannot explain it unless you give this story a shot and read it for yourself.
If you’ve read the books, I’d love to know your thoughts. Personally, I feel like this story played a large role in shaping what kind of reader I’d become. Now, sixteen years later, I still crack open Twilight to experience it all again.
No—I really did just re-read it for the fifth time last month.
If you haven’t given this book a try because you’ve seen the movies, I’d really encourage you to give it a chance. This is one of those stories that you don’t want to pass up solely because you think you know the story. In fact, I would say that Stephenie Meyer is one of my favorite authors of all time, and that’s not just because this was my first “hangover” book. Rather, if you’re someone who loves the subtle art of written words, I think you’ll find that you don’t want to give this one a pass. Meyer is a ridiculously talented world-builder, and her words do more than just paint a pretty picture.
I’m excited to hear other opinions on this story, so feel free to let me know your thoughts. Please just remember to be respectful and kind to all, including the lovely Stephenie Meyer. Hateful comments and rude remarks will not be tolerated, ya’ll.
Peace and love!
-D