Right off the bat, I have to admit that Midnight Sun is definitely a very tricky book for me to review; mainly because I’ve always had very complicated feelings about Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Saga. Plus, while I don’t think that Midnight Sun itself is perfect, I still loved this book in a guilty pleasure sense; and this book, and the Twilight Saga as a whole, definitely puts the “guilty” in “guilty pleasure”. I have to admit that a part of me had definitely given up hope years ago that Stephenie Meyer would ever finish writing Midnight Sun and publish it; so, I was very surprised when it was announced that not only had she finished writing it, she was also announcing the book’s release date (8/4/20). That being said, after having actually read Midnight Sun, I definitely think that this book was worth the wait.
While it has been, I honestly don’t even know how many years, since the last time I read Twilight (The Book), I did read Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined when the tenth anniversary edition of Twilight was released in 2015; so, I’m not entirely sure how much Midnight Sun compares to Twilight in terms of plot details and character development. That being said, I still thought that Meyer did a great job of adding new material and insight into all of the characters; especially when it came to Edward, and the other members of the Cullen family. Even for supporting characters, I’ve always thought that Edward’s family members were underdeveloped and underutilized characters in the main part of the Twilight Saga. That being said, I really felt like Meyer did a great job of using Midnight Sun as an opportunity to give the Cullen family some more character development, and offered the readers some more insight into them as characters. It was definitely a lot of fun to see a lot of interactions between Edward and the other members of the Cullen family in this book. Admittedly, I had been kind of worried that Midnight Sun would end up being a major rehash of Twilight, only written from Edward’s point of view. Thankfully, I ultimately don’t think that was the case. Meyer definitely did a great job of providing longtime fans of the Twilight series new insight into the events that take place in the first book in the series, as well as some great new insight into Edward as a character.
Personally, I thought that it was really great to be privy to Edward’s thought process behind how opposed he was to the idea of Bella being turned into a vampire. One of the biggest complaints that I’ve always had about the Twilight series is the fact that Bella was so quick to want to become a vampire just so she could be with Edward for forever; despite the fact that she had only known him for a few months. I have to admit that a big part of me has always felt very compelled to throw major shade at Bella for being so willing to become a vampire, giving up her humanity in the process, to be with a guy that she had only known for a fairly short amount of time; similar to how Olaf threw shade at Anna for wanting to marry Hans after just having met him during his (Olaf) recap of everything that happened in Frozen, as well as the events that had taken place up until that point in Frozen 2. If Bella simply wanted to marry Edward after only knowing him for a few months, I probably wouldn’t be so frustrated with her as a character since she and Edward could always get a divorce if things ended up not working out between them. Wanting to become a vampire just so that she could be with Edward for forever, on the other hand, would be permanent.
Despite being the protagonist of Midnight Sun, I have to admit that I thought that Edward came across as being very creepy and possessive of Bella at times throughout the book; which was definitely rather troubling to me. (For the record, I also thought that Edward came across as being rather creepy at times in the main series as well.) As far as I’m concerned, it’s usually not a good thing when a reader thinks the protagonist of a book is creepy and problematic, unless that’s the author’s intention, and I’m pretty sure that wasn’t Meyer’s intention when she wrote this book.
Getting back to the positive aspects of Midnight Sun, I also thought that Meyer did a great job of adding a little bit of intrigue to the overall plot of the book by briefly breaking away from this book being written from Edward’s point of view to show what the villains of the book were doing leading up to their confrontation with the Cullen family; and the events that take place towards the end of the book. That brief glimpse into what the villains were doing is another thing aside from Meyer expanding upon Edward’s relationship with the rest of the Cullen family that really helped keep Midnight Sun from being a total rehash of Twilight; and I really enjoyed that aspect of the book.
All things considered, much like all of the other books in the Twilight series, Midnight Sun definitely isn’t a literary masterpiece; but it’s still a great guilty pleasure book, and I had a ton of fun reading it. I feel like Midnight Sun ultimately proved to be worth the wait when it comes to Meyer waiting so many years to publish it after a draft of the book was leaked on the internet. Meyer definitely hit the right balance of Midnight Sun being Twilight (the book) written from Edward’s point of view, while also including enough new material and insight in terms of the overall plot of the book to keep Midnight Sun from coming across as being a total rehash of Twilight; and prevented Meyer’s writing for the book from coming across as being lazy, which is something that I think Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined is definitely guilty of. While I honestly haven’t really had any interest in rereading the original Twilight series, I ultimately thought that Midnight Sun proved to be a really fun way to revisit the series for the first time in several years.
That being said, my final score for Midnight Sun is 8 out of 10.
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