Twilight: The Book vs. The Movie

I read this book as a preview check before giving it to my daughter for her 12th birthday last year. I came so close to tossing it a hundred times before I got to the last few chapters when the action began. I found Meyer's writing mediocre at best. Her descritive phrases are redundant (i.e., "...his eyes tightened"). Her heroine is such a poor model for teenage girls--here's a girl who sees nothing good or worthy within herself and becomes so enamored by her "love" that she is willing to kill/destroy herself for him depending on whether she thinks he loves her or not. Teenage girls have enough issues without romanticizing the problems that are already rampant among them.

I saw the movie last weekend and liked it very much--I thought it was well done. In fact, it was one of the very few movies I've ever seen that I thought was actually better than the book. It got rid of most of the nauseating descriptions of Edward's perfection and created a much more tolerable Bella. At least it kept her "I can't live without you" manic episode to a hospital room where it could be partly written off as trauma.