One of our regular customers was kind enough to lend me the Twilight trilogy, by Stephanie Meyer, a few weeks ago. I finally had enough free time to sit down and start it. The first book, Twilight, was a little bit much for me. The premise of it is a teenage girl (Bella) moves to a small town in the Northern part of the country, where she falls in love with a vampire (Edward Cullen), and all of the hardships that go along with such love. It was a little overwhelming/boring for the first half of the book, this is due to the fact they fall in love at first sight and are instant "soul mates", but then the action started happening and I really got into it. Bella's life is always in danger, not only due to her own clumsiness, but also due to other vampires that are acquaintances with the Cullen family.
The second book, New Moon, was really enjoyable to read. The action continues in this book, but it does dwell a little too much on the intense love story between Bella and her vampire boyfriend. I think I might be a little biased when it comes to love stories though, because I've never enjoyed reading them in fiction. Bella develops more as a character and develops bonds with other characters in this book, besides the vampires from the first. One of my favorite characters is Jacob, a boy from the nearby Indian reservation. Bella becomes good friends with Jacob and learns about the history of the reservation and how that relates to the vampire family that she loves so much. The majority of the characters are ones that you will always want to learn more about how they came to be, such as the vampire family that Bella is taken in by. Each character has an interesting story that is told throughout the books. I think one of the signs of a good book, is the fact that you come to care a lot about the characters and do want to learn more about them.
As of right now, I'm in the middle of the third book. This is the kind of series that I really couldn't put down once I got into it. I think that is what happens to most of the people that read it, because even though the last two books are in hardcover, we keep selling them. I'm not sure this series is for everyone, it is targeted towards a teenage girl audience. However, many of the people that have read it and enjoyed it, have been women that are older than that. It is an interesting take on the vampires versus werewolves' saga, that is continually told throughout movies (such as Underworld) and other books.