Review

Rating: Unrated

(NOTE: This review originally appeared on TwilightGuy.com)

I am a guy, and I read Twilight to discover the reason so many girls around the world have fallen in love with the books and a vampire named Edward Cullen. Now that I have finished the first part of the saga, I think I have uncovered some of it, though I have probably only scratched the surface of all that can be taken from this wonderful novel.

With Twilight, Stephenie Meyer has told a story of the changes that can happen to a person when they love someone. At the beginning of the novel, I saw Bella as a girl who abhorred everything about Forks. But by the end, it is her home– and with her is a vampire who cares for her more than he cares for himself.

The character of Edward Cullen was one of the mysteries I originally set out to solve: this person that millions of girls worldwide have fallen in love with, just as Bella did inside of the novel. Like many guys, hearing from girls about how wonderful Edward is made me a bit hesitant to want to read an entire book that seemed, from the outside, as simply a checklist of the things that make him perfect and real guys dismally inadequate. But after I actually opened the book and studied Edward a little closer, I had to ask a few questions: Is Edward idolized so much only because he is a perfectly formed vampire? Would he be thought of so highly if he was still so attractive, and yet selfish and uncaring?

Because of this, I don’t believe girls love Edward only because he is built like a model and is a vampire. I think that the inside counts just as much as his outside appearance. There are many things that us less-than-Hellenisticly-perfect guys can take from the book by watching Edward: the respect he shows towards women, the selflessness of his actions, the level of polite elegance he maintains, the maturity of his judgment, among many others. These are all things that real guys can actually learn from him– and they don’t have to be vampires to do it, either.

The story in Twilight is hopeful and bittersweet in the same breath, which is as close to real life as a description can come. It is a story of love, but most of all it is a story of how true love can break down the strongest of barriers: even barriers that can stand between a human and a vampire.

–Kaleb Nation