Preface, an analysis.

I opened the book*. I did. It didn't try to burn me, or strangle me or paper cut me at all. I will admit, the cover, at least this cover (and not this one) is actually kind of nice. So the Trade Paperback edition I have is in fairly pristine conditions compared to how i usually 'love' my books. Most of my books are bent, curled, and have been very well read. I have quite a few hard covers who's bindings are only being held on by the glue or stitching.

I usually like to take time to look over the copyright pages and other informational pages before the story begins. So let's take the first couple of pages together, to re-create my experiences with the book.

With the cover open, we have the title page, which has Twilight in it's stylized lowercase font.
And read that the author's name is Stephanie Meyer (not Meyers, which I've been using).

The publishing company is a division of Hachette Book Groups- which have also published some of James Patterson's fiction aimed at teens/kids. Hachette acquired the subdivision of Little, Brown and Co. after Twilight was published in October 2005. This has been out for four-and-a-half years? Yesh! I am late to the party.

Never mind, I don't want to go to this party without at least 3 grams of coke and the TARDIS.

Ooh! My favourite part!
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Well, this bursts the bubble of Cullenism.

The (un)Holy Trinity

The dedication page is fairly standard, thanking a family member who's been encouraging.

After the Chapter List (which I didn't read due to the possibility of a spoiler) is a page with a Bible quote about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And God setting up his one big rule for Adam and Eve-- DO NOT EAT!

I am imagining these growing from a tree

So, forbidden love, doomed to fail, death, et cetera... Sounds good!

Then the actual preface starts. And is when it kind of starts to go down hill, for me. The first part of the opening line is rather strong; I'd never given much thought to how I would die. But the remainder is very wishy-washy. Still, the writing may be poor, but the story is there, sort of. So we have been dropped in the middle of a conflict between a 'hunter' and it's 'prey'.

The rest of the small four paragraph half page is more musings on what it is to die a noble death (in the place of someone you love) although there is no real sense emotion backing this statement. The said love is stated, not expressed or shown.

So here, we have someone about to die for someone who they say they love. Yay! Then we have a filler paragraph of semi-philosophical rambling about decisions and not regretting love and life.

Then we come to the last sentence.
The hunter smiled in a friendly way as he sauntered forward to kill me.

A hunter may swagger, a hunter may stalk, a hunter may run and decapitate it's prey, but a hunt sauntering is a hunter without prey to kill.

Example: Sauntering. An Example.

The whole en medias res of the preface drastically loses it's effect when you turn the page to...

Next: Chapter 1.


*So actually, I started reading this a while back ago. I got through the first chapter and had to stop. I had a huge headache. Not from the book, just I had a headache. Fun times or foreshadowing?