The Twilight Saga was the “it thing” when I was in high school. I read all four books and saw the first two movies. The second movie was so bad, I never saw the three follow-ons. I remember that the first movie had an amazing soundtrack, and my favorite line of “Since I’m going to hell” in a school parking lot scene (the rest of the movie was meh, looking back). Still, I enjoyed the original series when I read them, so I figured I’d read Midnight Sun when my future sister-in-law loaned it to me.
Book Read: Midnight Sun
Author: Stephanie Meyer
2020 Book Count: 51
Midnight Sun is the retelling of the first Twilight book from Edward’s perspective. If you’ve read the original Twilight, you understand the plot; you probably also get the plot if you haven’t lived under a rock for the past 10 years or so. Just in case, I’ll give you a brief overview of this one.
Edward Cullen is a vampire in Forks, Washington. He keeps his distance from humans; he and his family elect to be vegetarian vampires by eating animals in place of humans. It’s always worked for him until Bella Swan moved to Forks. Her mind is the only one he can’t read, and her scent appeals to him like no one else’s.
His initial draw to Bella is to kill her (he is a vampire and all), but then it grows into something else. He feels a need to protect her at no cost, despite feeling like he needs to stay away from her. Throughout the novel, Edward will deal with his internal struggle and keeping Bella safe.
When I mentioned to a few people that I was reading Midnight Sun and it was a retelling of the first Twilight, they asked how it was. My answer was always “Well, it’s fine.” Because that’s all it was - fine; 658 pages of fine. (Out of curiosity, I checked out the length of the original Twilight, because I still have a copy. The paperback was 498 pages. Midnight Sun is 658… how is there such a big difference?)
There isn’t much to say about a retelling of a story you already know. While I didn’t remember every detail about Twilight when I started reading this one, it all started coming back to me pretty quickly. After things started coming back to me, Midnight Sun became less and less appealing.
I get that Twilight fans wanted this book; they have been asking Meyer for it for years. But why? Why retell a book that was good before? Mostly, why make me read the same story twice, but from a different perspective? For some, this might work. For me, I questioned it the entire time. While it’s nice to hear Edward’s perspective, it was overkill. I mentioned to multiple people that if any other books that I enjoyed are rewritten from a different perspective. I would be, frankly, po-ed (I’m talking to you, JK Rowling. Do not do this to Harry Potter).
If you’re a Twilight super fan, then Midnight Sun would be a good read for you. If you are just a regular Twilight fan, it might not be worth your time to reread the same book again. I liked Twilight over ten years ago when I first read it, but if Meyer decides to rewrite any of the other books in the series, I won’t be reading. I’ll enjoy what I remember about the original books and leave it at that.
Next Read: Anxious People by Fredrik Backman
