Midnight Sun - Stephenie Meyer

Midnight Sun - Stephenie Meyer

4.5/5 

I’m not going to be concerned about spoilers in this post because as we all know, this is a rewrite of Twilight from Edward Cullens perspective. If you haven’t read Twilight, start there – not with this review.

I will be the first to admit that I was legitimately shocked by how much I enjoyed the book. When it was finally announced that Meyer was releasing Midnight Sun, I rolled my eyes so hard I checked out my own ass. All I could think was oh look, another cash cow. But once I started reading, Midnight Sun made me hate Edward so much less because I could delve into his motivations for why he is the way he is with Bella. He’s a much more complicated character this time around which is great. The whole controlling me-Tarzan-you-Jane thing from the original saga got very old, very fast and is one of the major reasons in the anti-Twilight column for most readers. Because we can’t see into his head in the original saga, we don’t really have any understanding of his motivations and we all just think less of Bella for being so willing to bend to his wishes.

Aside from getting a better understanding of Edward as a character, we also get to see more into the inner workings of the Cullen family, which is something that I, and many other readers, have dreamed of for a long time. Because the book is from Edward’s perspective, we can literally hear the innermost thoughts of everyone around him, which includes his parents and siblings.  That being said...

                Rosalie is an even crappier character than she was in the original saga. Midnight Sun did her dirty for sure. She is conceited, spoiled, rude... she’s just a brat. I have a difficult time believing that her personality fits in with the rest of the family. We get some of why she hates her life so much from the original saga, having missed out on her human life, but her literal only alternative would have been death. She would not have had a regular human life either way. At least in her vampire life, she is able to find some peace with Emmett but even that relationship is sullied by the knowledge that she would give Emmett up in a heart beat if it meant having a normal human life again. I’m not guessing – it’s clearly stated in the book.

                Emmett is kind of still just chocked up to a fun-loving beefcake. He adds a bit to the story but I have a difficult time believing that after 70+ years, he still doesn’t seem to have any motivation or interests aside from ... I’ve got nothing. Rose? He really likes to fight? He and Jasper play fight and that’s all of the extracurriculars we see him do. I’ve really got nothing. He is apparently a mostly empty headed character who only serves to fill in the blank as Rosalie’s mate. Midnight Sun did Emmett dirty too.

                On the other hand, Jasper became a much more interesting character. We really get to delve more into his powers which was really interesting to read. When they meet the trio of James, Laurant, and Victoria while playing baseball, we discover that Jasper can actually make himself and others become unobtrusive, to a point where he made Bella and half the family mostly unnoticeable to the new vampires until the wind shifted and they caught Bella’s scent. This scene in particular was doubly interesting because through Edward, we could see what the new vampires were thinking too.

                Alice was always an interesting character and I don’t think there were any major changes to my perspective for her, aside from the fact that we got to watch how her visions work and how they played out.  I did find that very interesting, especially her final visions where she is deciding how to create Bella’s fictional accident to explain her injuries away. The rewinding of and slightly changing decisions to see how it affects the outcome was really cool to watch. Also the way Edward with his mind reading and Alice with her visions work in conjunction with one another was very, very cool.

                Two things really bugged me about the book. 1) How it treated Rosalie and Emmett. There was room for such potential here and I feel like it was squandered. That being said the book already maxes out at 650 pages so I can deal with the fact that their stories didn’t get further teased out. 2) When the family is at home, they speak to Edward with their thoughts. They are all standing in a room thinking at Edward and he is verbally answering them. I find it super annoying. His ears work. You can talk to him. I understand doing it for privacy reasons or wanting to keep a conversation as quiet as possible, but when you’re all discussing matters that are important to the whole family, the whole family should probably be able to hear it.

                Bonus fact: apparently Meyer has announced she is going to be releasing two new Twilight books. I’m not sure if she’ll be doing it the same way, ie New Moon and Eclipse but written from someone else’s point of view, but if she does I strongly vote for New Moon from the perspective of Jacob Black and Eclipse from Alice or Jaspers’ point of view. New Moon from Jacob’s perspective would be something I would be ALL OVER. And for the hell of it... give me Breaking Dawn as a combination of Charlie and Alistair’s perspectives!

                Overall, I liked the book a lot more than I thought I would. I was really pleasantly surprised considering I was on the fence about buying it at all.