Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

"He raised his free hand and placed it gently on the side of my neck. I sat very still, the chill of his touch a natural warning — a warning telling me to be terrified. But there was no feeling of fear in me. There were, however, other feelings..."

When I was middle school all you could get me to read was fantasy and science fiction. After years of a constant intake of vampires, werewolves, aliens, and dragons I was sure I would never want to pick up another book with any of that as content again. As a result, I resisted the recent hype around books like Harry Potter and Eragon. However, even if I'm fantasy-weary I'm still a female and am a sucker for books about relationships as long as that's not all they are about, so I decided to give in to reading Twilight.

Meyer really sucked me in despite my cynicism. There were certain aspects of the book that made me roll my eyes, of course--for example, the book is just littered with long, descriptive examples of Bella gazing endlessly into Edward's eyes and Meyer is a bit heavy handed on working to make Edward seem aloof and mysterious. (Come on, Edward, you may be a vampire but get over yourself.) Despite the fact that their relationship seemed rather obsessive and shallow to me, Meyer did a great job of creating convincing chemistry between the two. I could also appreciate the fact that despite their intense attraction to one another their storyline remained innocent and sex never entered into the picture at all--especially since there are so many young fans. The major objection I had to their relationship that Edward used his abilities to do things that the typical jealous male could not do--like listen to her conversations with other people by reading the mind of whatever male Bella was speaking to and getting into her room to watch her sleep before he ever even had any kind of relationship with Bella. Creepy much?

While her writing style often left a lot to be desired her imagination surely didn't. My favorite part of the novel was a scene where the vampires decided to include Bella in a game of baseball. Through the game Meyer really let them show off their super-human abilities. Because of their heightened strength, they had to wait until a thunderstorm to play because the crack of the ball against one of their swings created a deafening sound that could be mistaken for thunder that would have attracted outside attention if it wasn't for the storm. Also, Meyer created a breed of vampire unlike any other that I've read. I appreciated the fact that she didn't borrow many ideas from the old myths and decided to put her own spin on things.

Despite the fact that the majority of Twilight's 500 pages are dedicated to the young conflicted couple, my favorite character by far was Alice. Alice is endlessly accepting and loving, impish in both appearance and action, and can see the future even though she doesn't remember her human past. I feel like she created a kind of calm for Bella that no one else in the novel could and created a more "human" connection with Bella than even her family or school friends did. I also appreciated the fact that even though she had a heart so big that it seemed to take up her whole body she could still piss Edward off endlessly. Because he often got on my nerves, I got a kick out of someone pushing his buttons for a change.

The last thing that I'll say is that Meyer must have a wonderful sense of humor, because this book made me laugh a lot, which is something that I wouldn't have really expected. Both Edward and Bella were given quite a few good one liners and their comebacks were also pretty witty and sharp.

I did a little bit of poking around Meyer's website and I have to say that for a stay-at-home Mom and a practicing Mormon she defies a lot of stereotypes. I plan on forgetting my fantasy aversion long enough to finish this series and maybe her novel The Host. She let me escape my life for a while and let me enjoy a book without weighing me down and after exams and a rather tough semester, that's exactly the kind of reading I'm up for.

Looking For Alaska by John Green

"I wanted to be one of those people who have streaks to maintain, who scorch the ground with their intensity. But for now, at least I knew such people, and they needed me, just like comets need tails."

The only way I know to start this review is to tell you that if I were an author, this is the kind of book that I would want to write. It had me laughing in the library with people looking at me like I was on drugs and it was impossible to put down in a way that made me forget it was assigned school reading. (What is it about being told to read a book that usually saps a good portion of the fun out of it?)

Looking for Alaska is a book that functions on two levels. On the first level, we are dealing with a fun loving group of pranksters living together at a boarding school in the middle of nowhere, wreaking havoc on their classmates and teachers. Green captures so many important little adolescent moments in just the right way-- the adrenaline you feel when you know you're probably going to be caught doing something you'll regret later, the cigarette you're offered that makes your lungs explode, and the first kiss where you have no clue what you're suppose to be doing with your mouth, ect. That last one is particularly funny in this book.
"I thought: This is good.
I thought: I am not bad at this kissing. Not bad at all.
I thought: I am clearly the greatest kisser in the history of the universe."
...and then the girl pulls away and asks why he's slobbering everywhere.

On the second level, the book is addressing all of the Big Scary Questions that start to matter during those years where we feel invincible but also full of confusion about what the hell is really going on. Our main character Miles is obsessed with famous people's last words and they're scattered throughout the book as he reacts to situations and tries to work out what they mean as a kind of device to make the book a bit more meaningful and literary. He ties in the things that he's learning in his world religion class so that the things he's working through become more universal and less reliant on his personal circumstances. The entire reason he leaves his boring life back home for boarding school is that he is going to find his "Great Perhaps," stolen from the last words of Rabelais. The most important last words used in the novel, though, are those of Bolivar, being "How will I ever get out of this labyrinth!" The characters want to know first what the labyrinth is, if it's life or death or suffering. Then they want to know what the way out is.

Alaska, the character the book is named for, is elusive, moody, sexy, and completely histrionic. She's the girl that makes things happen. Of course, she's also the girl her circle of male friends are lusting after throughout the book, whose plot relies mainly on the interaction between Alaska and Miles. I don't want to say too much or give anything away, so moving on... The other characters are fun and different, as well. (Takumi, the free-styling Asian who refers to himself the motherfucking fox. The Colonel is from a trailer park and at the school on a scholarship and is always the one getting them into elaborately crafted schemes even though he has the most to lose. Lara's the shy girl from Romania who made me die in the library laughing at her attempts to seduce Miles.)

Lastly, I liked the way that Green set up the novel. On his website he talks about how he was working on the book during September 11th, and that made him think about how there are central moments in people's lives, how there was a Before September 11th and an After September 11th. While this book has nothing to do with what happened on 9/11, it's set up the same way, with one section titled Before and the other After. The climax of this novel is the central moment of Miles' life, and so the beginning is set up so that the chapters count down the days to the big event that shapes him, and the end counts down the days afterwards.

If you like YA fiction, I'd recommend it. The reviews all say it's reminiscent of Holden Caulfield, but I don't know that I would go that far.