Midnight Sun

This review is also featured on Behind the Pages: Midnight Sun

Midnight Sun was a difficult book for me to read. The beginning is filled with Edward second-guessing himself and overanalyzing situations. While I know being over cautious is necessary for him when he first meets Bella, it still felt like filler. I almost gave up, until it was suggested I switch over to the audiobook. Jake Abel was the perfect narrator for Midnight Sun, and his take on Edward brought me back into the fold.

Once Edward and Bella began to know one another, the plot picked up the pace. The story was less about Edward overanalyzing and more about relationship development and building up the characters. It's been a while since I read Twilight, but I remember wanting to see more involvement from Edward's family. Midnight Sun provided all I needed to know about the rest of the Forks coven. Readers will experience an in depth look at their powers and motivations as Stephenie Meyer reveals their family dynamics and relationships.

Readers will also have the opportunity to learn more about Edward's past. I enjoyed learning about Edward and his faults through his history versus the constant back and forth inside his mind. Granted, in any new relationship, there is a sense of doubt that clouds judgment, but it was taken to an extreme with Edward. Yes, I know he is a vampire and things can turn on a dime, but it could have scaled back and still provided the sense of danger that was required.

Even though this was a struggle, I still recommend Midnight Sun to fans of Twilight. I'm one of those people who loves to see all angles of a situation to better understand it, and Midnight Sun gave me this opportunity.

Y'all I'm not... I can't... I am not ready to relive my dark past as a twihard. But I can't NOT read it??? Not into that coverrrr

Not as good as Twilight, but good to read from Edward’s pov.

I was worried this book would be repetitive… and it was.

Same plot as twilight but Edwards POV and obviously he thinks too much about everything so it’s double as long and double as boring and I really didn’t enjoy it. Multiple times I wished I could DNF it gets this rating because it is still the plot that I found kind of interesting in twilight so if I didn’t read it so close I might have found it more interesting. I really don’t know I think it was too dragged out and Edward thinks about the same things over and over.

Dnf

All the nostalgia, all the vibes. I've always been Team Edward after all. Now I need Edward's POV of Breaking Dawn (we can skip New Moon and Eclipse because we don't like love triangles around these parts and reading Bella's POV many years ago was enough). 3.5/5⭐

3.5 Stars

This book. The Twilight Nostalgia was real. Edward was very frustrating throughout the book. I liked seeing more of Alice, Emmett, and Jasper. We seen more history and side characters.

This book was so much longer than it needed to be and so much of it was unnecessary but I do love me some Bella and Edward and especially loved the more in-depth look into the Cullens

this was unnecessarily long.

Decisions were made and not necessarily the correct ones.

Madre mía Eduardo, te pasas de intenso. Y quiero gritar unas cuantas cosas pero no me apetece poner la etiqueta de spoiler.
Bella MVP como siempre y Alice: te quiero, eres la mejor. Que paciencia tenéis...

Edward is the worst.

Somehow this book made him both more sympathetic and more insufferable! I didn't know it was possible to make him more insufferable but I lost count of how many times I rolled my eyes about halfway through the first chapter. And the fact that he was already planning on leaving Bella well before the events of New Moon? THE WORST.

Also. There was actually too much vampire baseball, and wayyyyy too much car talk during the race to the ballet studio. Did not care about any of that!

One of these stars is for Jake Abel and Jake Abel alone, because his narration of the audiobook is honestly what kept me going through some of the more infuriating moments of Edward being the worst! Good job, Jake Abel!

Oof. I liked this like I like the rest of the saga, which is begrudgingly and with a healthy dose of eye-rolling.

So I just recently binge read the Twilight Series and I was surprised that I loved it so much. So why wait to read Edward's perspective right? So I jumped in...

I have to say I was torn between a 3.5 and a 4 rating for this one. I ended up at 4 because I ultimately loved more than disliked this one.

While I did enjoy seeing from his POV, I also didn't enjoy it. For one thing the chapters were extremely long, and (for me) seemed to become whiny and repetitive. For such a big book, it could have used with some culling I think.

What I loved most was Edward's thoughts as he became aware of and finally met Bella. I also loved the Cullen family thoughts as they all started to become a part of the inevitable Edward & Bella duo. Alice, as always, was my favorite...even in Edward's book

i finished it! all 26 hours.
this book, or rather, diving back into the twilight franchise after a little over a decade was a whole bunch of fun. I definitely got the most enjoyment out of the first movie, and this book was a nice accompaniment to that.
I think this would be a great buddy read for those who enjoyed the original books. Whether you still think they have literary merit now, or you don't really care and just want a good time.
There are many many effed up things about the twilight series and i'm not going to go into them now, i'm definitely not the right person to discuss them – but they're valid and should be given the appropriate thoughts. Many other reviewers here and elsewhere will have put it much better than I. I will say that many authors write many effed up things in books and don't get nearly as much hate for it. While Bella deserved SO much better, and Edward is an absolute freak, I support Bella's rights to be a dumb ass monster fucker. I too remember the intensity of my relationships and stupid choices made at her age, I'd probably think its cute if a sexy vampire man watched me sleep too.

This book really showed Edward's frightening side well. It was brilliantly read by the narrator - Jake Abel. I'll have to look out for other books read by him. He delivered the lines with such emotion, and I was genuinely taken back when he would gutturally growl Edward's scary lines. He didn't butcher the women's voices either, which was a welcome change. It was a very immersive listen. It was interesting to see Edward's side of things, and get more time spent with the Cullen family. This book was definitely, far, far too long. So many things were happening (which were all quite slice of lifey) but about 30% in I couldn't believe how much story was left to go. As mentioned, I haven't read the first book in at least 13 years, maybe longer. So I didn't really get the little nods to the crazy shit Edward was doing while Bella was watching him and just thinking ‘WTF'. I do remember Edward randomly laughing out loud frequently, so it was cute to see it from his perspective.

I loved the characterisation we got in this book, I definitely had a sunnier view of Bella. I don't remember too much of my feelings about her back in the day but I would say it's only improved from then. Mostly, I really fell in love with Emmett's character in this story, what a sweetheart.

While I don't think this book is necessarily ‘good' I enjoyed reading it, it was a fun ride. If Meyer releases the rest of the series from Edward's perspective, i'd almost definitely put myself through this again. Especially if it's narrated by Jake Abel. It'd be cool if she did it from another Cullen's perspective, or to go with the obvious choice for New Moon - Jacob.

I dislike writing reviews for only 2 stars because I feel like I am being unfair. I listened to the audio book (I consider it reading) and.... Well..... I fell asleep near the end of the book because I was so bored listening to the audio book due to how boring the overall book was (For ME). I did not practically care for the view point and maybe that was because I am used to Twilight. I have a feeling I did not like this book because I have already read and love Twilight.

This book was really interesting because it views the very familiar story of Twilight from Edward's perspective.

A couple things I loved about this format:

1. You get to actually hear what he is thinking about Bella (more on this later). This (at first) was great. Because Edward is such a stoic character whose face does not give away much, it was hard to discern what exactly he was thinking about any particular subject at any time. HOWEVER, BY THE END OF THE BOOK I WAS SO TIRED OF HEARING HIM TALK SHT ABOUT BELLA'S WANT TO BE A VAMPIRE. Like he was the “bad guy” and that she didn't know what she was doing or how he is always putting her in danger. For those who have read the normal books from Bella's perspective, you know that Edward straight up just leaves Bella in ‘New Moon' because he is “saving” her from himself. This possibility that he was going to do this actually started early on in the novel and he grappled with it up until the end. Obviously we all know what happens, but in New Moon from Bella's perspective, this is quite a shock (I cried hard for a whole day when I read this in my teens... heartbreak...) BUT you know where New Moon is going from Edward's perspective in this novel. The foresight is real. SO, I am very excited for how Stephanie Meyers alternate to New Moon is going to be. I mean she has to keep going now that she opened this can of worms. And actually that book has the opportunity to go even deeper in an explanation into the vampire world, Edward's life and also give intro to the other covens that just show up in Breaking Dawn (because I believe Edward goes and visits a lot of other covens), because New Moon is so primarily focused on building up Bella and Jacob's relationship.2. You get more clarity on hoe everything actually goes down because you are hearing Edward's thoughts and also the thoughts of others because he can read minds. This gives so much more depth to the story, especially because for a large portion of the end drama you are hearing Edward read Alice's thoughts of the future. This is basically like having two narrators. And the fact that Alice and her beginnings are more explained is phenomenal because I love her.3. For whatever reason I like Bella a lot better in this book than I remember?? Idk she just sounded smarter that what I remember but this could be fake news because I read Twilight a LONG time ago.It took me a long time to finish this book solely because I was tired of hearing martyr Edward's pity rants about ‘loving Bella' but having to leave her because he is a monster, etc. etc. (you can obvi tell I was always Team Jacob but alas...) Also something to note is that there is a lot more explanation in this book as a preface to the things Bella learns in New Moon about the treaty, because Edward was actually there for it. Also, you can start to see the relationship between Jacob and Edward form as well that was only ever highlighted in Eclipse. Because Edward can read Jake's mind he can see that he is pure and wholesome and his intentions for Bella are only that of love (cue the AWKKKKK love triangle early.)Anyways, loved this book. 3.75/5 stars. The only reason I didn't round to 4 in the review above is because I'm still mad about how much time was wasted and how much harder it was to get through bc of Edwards inner monologues about morality. *sigh how many times can you say the same thing ,my dude? (But also love/hate to Steph for actually coming up with 75 different ways to say the same thing and still keep it the tiniest bit fresh to capture enough intrigue to drag yourself as the reader through yet another pit of despair.

Side note: I would have much preferred if she formatted this book to be like 1500 pages and literally merged Twilight and Midnight Sun so you could start reading a chapter from Bella's perspective then jump to Edward's or do some co-mingling in the chapters. I have seen this done in other romance novels and really enjoyed it. If she could pull this off succinctly it would make the monologues worth it.

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk!!

Edward sure does think a lot. So much.

The only addition to Edwards side of the story is his detailed fascination with cars.

Ugh. I made it. I MADE IT! PHEW.
I don't know how this EVER managed to get published (well actually I have a strong feeling good old Mr. Money had a hand in that) but I finished it. This was meant to be a fun nostalgic ride - my 13 year old self was all about Twilight - but after just a few chapters I was on a mission! A mission to finish this and review it because I cannot possibly understand how you can dare to portray something so problematic as romantic to a YA audience! It was like watching the Netflix show YOU only that in this story nobody seems to have a problem with the guy stalking the girl, thinking about murdering innocent people because the are annoying and being possessiv and patronizing. EVERYBODY IS COMPLETELY FINE WITH THAT!!! „Oh Edward, what's up? Off to stalking Bella again, watching her in her sleep without her knowing while thinking about how delicious she tastes? Aww you dork, how cute, have fun!” WTF
Trust me, knowing what Edward is thinking, will NOT make you like him. In the first half of the book, I was just completely in shock and couldn't believe that this was actually what I was reading. It was so unbelievably stupid and problematic that I started to laugh out loud multiple times because HOW can this be taken seriously - this has to be a joke... right? But nope, it‘s not, it‘s real. While in the second half, the psycho-stalker-murder-Edward is replaced by corny-possessive-patronizing-Edward it just drags on and on, repeating the same streams of thought over and over again. And again. And again. And again and again and again and again. We get it. Bella is soooo self-less. And sooo special. And you are sooo dangerous. And sooo selfish. dramatic sigh

But on a serious note - if you want some Twilight nostalgia, don't read this book. Pick up the first book or something to satisfy that Edward sized gap in your teen-memory-cravings, because after this, there will be no more gap. There will be an icky feeling of „wtf did I just read“ and you will have wasted 750 pages (!!!) on a story you already know told in a more problematic, boring and dragged out way than you could have imagined. Do yourself a favor and do not pick this up.

i would've never thought that in 2020 i would spend 25+ hrs reading a twilight book, but then again, i never would've thought i'd be inside for 8+ months during a global pandemic.

the magical nostalgia of the twilight world is unparalleled for me. i was so captivated as a teen that i literally associate it with a smell and a certain feeling that is still really magical.

however, as my sister camille told me recently, “for someone who is over 100 years old, edward is pretty immature.” not going to lie, i 100% read this book for the nostalgia, rosalie, and alice!

Worth the wait

I've waited, along with everyone else, for so long hoping Stephenie would finish this book. It was so worth the wait! Reading Edwards side of the story is sad and funny and unexpected. I could only be more happy if she did the other books, a girl can dream!!!

I expected to thoroughly hate this book, if I'm being entirely honest. I've grown so far beyond my attachment to the original series, which saw me though some of my darkest teenage years.

And don't get me wrong, it still has all the troublesome and problematic writing that is trademark of a Stephanie Meyer book, but I enjoyed it anyways.

The older and more well read you get, the harder it is to stop analysing books and just absorb and enjoy them. But with this, it was like slipping on an old, worn jumper. Familiar and comfortable. I knew all the characters and the story, but there was just enough new content to make it feel fresh while still familiar.
I enjoyed it for all the reasons you enjoy reading fanfiction.

Though, let me be clear, this is still utter trash and it reads dangerously too similar to the memoir of a serial killer that, after the EL James' take on BDSM fiasco, I have actual worries that this will be how girls think men are supposed to be.

Spoiler alert: they're not and if they act like this, they're going to stab you in your sleep. Run!

NECESITO Luna Nueva desde la perspectiva de Edward

Purely for the fact that we get to learn more about the sparkling vampires of the Cullen clan!

As a person who grew up reading the books and watching the films throughout my teenage years, this series will always have a special place in my heart. I know it's not amazingly written, but I think nostalgia allows me to forgive that... With that being said I will start with the bad points... I found this book incredibly long and meandering. I felt like it was just the same thing over and over and over again. Edward wanting to kill Bella, but he loves her, but he wants to kill her, but he doesn't, he's hurting her, she's better off without him, etc. The self pity from Edward was off putting. This book actually made me kind dislike him as a character. But now for the good points... hearing other characters thoughts, especially when they're unaware that Edward can hear them, was hilarious. This book made me fall in love with the Cullen family even more than I already was... Alice and Emmett are standouts for me. Edwards hatred for Mike was hilarious and honestly, justified. Horny murderous Edward was funny, I won't lie. The bottom line is I enjoyed this book, I just felt it could it been half the size. 756 pages was completely unnecessary in my opinion. That being said will I read anything else Stephenie Meyer puts out that is within the Twilight world? Absolutely. I would love a book from Alice's perspective, or a book from Carlisle's perspective, his life story.