I know it’s an unpopular opinion, but I loved the Twilight series when it first came out. And honestly, I thought I was over it. Like “oh, it was an important part of my teenage years, but I’m an adult now so…”. But then I found out that Midnight Sun (Twilight from Edward’s point of view) is coming out next month and I am SO. FREAKING. EXCITED! So in honor of that, I thought I’d share with you why Twilight is so special to me on a personal level. (And if you’re not a fan of the books, that’s okay too! We all have our different preferences.)
Twilight is the first book I ever remember buying new from a bookstore. My family has always been a library family and my parents own a used bookstore, so buying new books wasn’t really a thing. But when I read Twilight I had to own a copy, so I had my Dad drive me down to the mall bookstore (RIP Borders) so I could buy one.
Twilight is also the first book I ever remember re-reading. Before that, I didn’t really get the point of re-reading books. You already know the story, so why bother? (This was back when I still remembered what I read past a book or two…) But I read Twilight over and over and over again. Below is a picture of my beloved copy, which has been read so many times, the front cover has fallen off. And this has introduced me to the wonderful world of re-reading. Sometimes a familiar story can bring you comfort, or if read at different times in your life, can mean different things.
I received a signed copy of New Moon for my sixteenth birthday. My birthday party was “lime green” themed, because that’s the kind of teen I was. 😛 The friend who got it for me was someone I met while we were volunteering at the library. (Actually, I think we also helped plan a Twilight prom at the library too, since those were popular at the time. We all got dressed up and played trivia and did other fun Twilight-related things.)
I grew up close to where Stephenie Meyer is from, so for Eclipse we got to go to a book signing! Now that I think about it, this was probably my first book signing too. A couple of my friends went as well which was a ton of fun. One of my friends (her name is Kristina, but we all call her Red) has red hair and I remember that Stephenie Meyer commented that she loved red hair. I thought that was funny since one of the main characters had firey red hair. 😛
For Breaking Dawn, we all stayed up for the midnight release of the book. (Again, RIP Borders Bookstore.) Not all of my friends were into the books, but we were the type of group where everyone would show up anyways. So we spent our evening hanging out in a bookstore. We spent a lot of time hanging out in bookstores as teenagers/young adults actually. I mean, they are pretty awesome places. 🙂
I got the graphic novel as a birthday gift and I love it, it’s beautiful! I wish they still sold book two… I can only find them online for like $100! Yikes! I also bought the 10th anniversary version of the book when it came out (the gender-swap version). I read it and enjoyed that it wasn’t exactly the same as the original. But I found the gender-swap super mind boggling – I was so familiar with the original story that I kept getting confused on who was who.
As far as the movies, I’ve never seen them. I enjoyed the books enough that I just didn’t want to spoil that with a movie.
So how about you? Are you excited for Midnight Sun? Do you have fun memories around the Twilight series? Or if Twilight isn’t your series – what is? I’d love to hear your wonderful bookish experiences. 🙂
❤ Annette
Annette the Bookworm 