When I found out that Stephanie Meyers was releasing another book, it felt like the wind had been knocked out of me. As a classic teenager addicted to the cult that was the Twilight era, I needed this book! I had only found out about Midnight Sun around three days before it was going to be released. I had dropped off the wagon of book release notifications, but this one truly stunned me. We were told that this book would never make its way to publication, at least that was what Meyer’s had hinted at years ago.
Midnight Sun is the fifth edition of the Twilight series written from the point of view of Edward Cullen. Edward is the vampire lover of Bella Swan, the original protagonist in the four-part series, and with this most recent edition, many questions will be answered.
As soon as the book was delivered, I couldn’t resist ravishing through it like a lion getting its morning meal. I was hooked, brought back to a simpler time of youth when I had just become a teenager.
This book was everything I needed – as if I didn’t have a pretty unrealistic addiction to the Twilight series already. I was catapulted to a time where I thought that YA fiction was the only literature I would ever need to consume. Little did I realize how purely awful it is, but awful in a tragically good way, in a way that you can’t get enough.
The book finds itself on the YA list yet again, as it is not mature as far as writing, and is written in a style similar to the previous books in the series.
In the book, we get to see everything from Edward’s point of view. We read what he thought of Bella, even scenes about him watching after her during the time we thought he wasn’t around. The novel brings the reader through the entire love affair that the two teenagers voyaged on, and it truly makes you cringe, but with the best intentions.
We read as Edward’s love grows immensely for Bella when for a long time in the first book, one would assume he despised her. The reader gets to feel the emotions that Edward unravels in himself for the first time; how Rosalie was meant to be his Esme and how he had never felt a connection with anyone besides Carlisle.
Although it was very familiar in terms of the previous books, I feel like Meyers wanted to focus on the sexual tension the two shared throughout the series. You get a bit of Fifty Shades of Grey vibes in many areas of the book, and it makes you wonder if Meyers wanted this adaption and the characters within to grow with the audience that was once captivated by them.
Although I adored the book and truly hope there will be more, it was nice to relive the emotions I felt when I was fifteen. It made me add the series back to my Amazon cart and search for my DVDs and online streaming services to watch the film. It invoked emotions in me that I hadn’t felt in some time with a novel.
The recommendation here is to give it a chance. It will most likely surprise you, making you eager for Meyers to write more from the point-of-view of the Cullens.