The Twilight Saga bit me too

I love reading. Especially if I'm lucky to find a good book, I devour it in less than a day, provided I have little interruptions like work. Some books I'll find by accident, just stumbling across it in either the library or the book store. Other times it will be from word of mouth. This time I fell for the hype. Yes, I was bitten (pun intended) by the Twilight Saga book. Luckily, I only had just heard about them so I didn't have to wait years for them to come out. Rather, it was the comparison to Harry Potter, which is one of my favorites, that drew me to read Stephen Meyer's work.

Twilight, the first book, was a wonderful read. A great escape into her idea of the world of the vampire. The characters of Bella Swan and Edward Cullen were definitely intriguing. After reading up on the author I found out why. Stephen Meyers had included elements of Pride and Prejudice, my all time favorite book. Meyers stated in an interview on Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com/gp/mpd/permalink/m38Y4RL2PQXLBV) that she loosely based her characters, Bella and Edward on Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy. There are definite elements in each of Meyer's characters that bear similarities to the classic and beloved characters of Austen. For this reason only I was hooked. I needed to know what happened to the characters. I need to see if Bella would indeed become a vampire and if Edward ever slept (in the book vampires don't need to sleep :)).

SPOILERS BELOW so BEWARE!!!!!!

I read Twilight and it was a good read. Not as good as Harry Potter, but on its on level very good. I will definitely keep it in my collection and read it again from time to time. After Twilight I read the next, New Moon which expanded on Jacob's character. A good read as well but I was slightly disappointed in Bella. In Twilight, she was an independent girl, good at school and good alone. When Edward left her, she shrunk into herself, doing odd things just to hear his voice in her head. First love, true love doesn't necessarily mean obsession but that is what became of dear Bella. She lost her gumption. She was no longer Elizabeth Bennet in modern times but just Bella a teenager who had lost love. I could sympathize with her to an extent but it was a bit difficult to like her as much as I had in the first book. With Eclipse, further expansion on the characters came about and of them all I liked Jacob. Read it and you'll see. Bella gained some gumption back but never enough to satisfy the first book. The most interesting part of the entire book was Edward's marriage proposal to Bella. He would only make her a vampire if she married him. How sweet. No really very sweet. So why am I reading this if Bella was disappointing, I needed to know if she became a vampire. I won't spoil the book for anyone who hasn't read it, I realize its just out and I'd like to abide by Stephenie's wishes not to reveal anything so that they can experience it themselves. I will say this though, I liked Bella more at the end of the book, not as much as in Twilight but she came alive for me at the end, yet again pun intended. There were some hokey ideas that I could have done without but I'm glad I read it. I'm glad I found out what happened to Bella. Will I keep all of the books...nope..I'll just keep Twilight.